Vocable Code
Quoi:
Work
Quand:
6:00 PM, lundi 13 août 2018
(3 jours 20 heures)
Où:
Centre de Design (DE) UQAM -
Galerie du Centre de Design
Discussion:
0
Vocable code examines gender gaps in computer coding and digital
culture. Through collecting voices and statements from others that help
to complete the sentence that begins: “Queer is…”, the work is
computationally and poetically composed where the texts and voices are
repeated and disrupted by mathematical chaos, creating a dynamic
audio-visual literature. Behind the executed web interface, the source
code is deliberately written as a piece of Codework that explores the
tension between computational constraints and language poetry. Indeed,
the constraints regarding not only incorporating computer syntaxes,
structures and functions, but also the resistance of binary logics. From
the invention of digital computers to contemporary computation, the
design of digital computers, programming languages and algorithmic
decisions are technically structured in the spirit of absolute logic
without any ambiguity. This binary computational thinking is influential
and powerful as it promotes a particular style of writing and thinking
as binary: on or off, true or false, yes or no, something or nothing
which is ideally nothing in between, or nothing can be undecided, or
nothing as non-binary. In view of this, writing Vocable (source) code is
an attempt to think through the cultural implications and gaps of
binary logic by avoiding binary 0 or 1, a single x or y, and a single
operator with < or > as informed by the feminist programming
language C+=. Considering voices, constraints and code naming, I
consider Vocable code as a piece of queer e-lit, which is a constant
unsettling and questioning on the binary thinking, gap and logic, both
culturally and technically.